Pumpkin Sunrise

  Hello! How are you? How was your weekend? My weekend was ultra relaxing but I made it so. I've been enjoying reading and knitting, sometimes at the same time, in the afternoons before I start cooking. I love the change of seasons and how I move with them. In the summer, I hardly feel like knitting much but I do. In the winter, I can't get enough of knitting. I've mainly worked on my hat or my sweater  on Saturday and Sunday. I walked yesterday and I believe that is the last walk outside until the end of the week. It will be too cold. That doesn't stop me from exercising in the house though. It's been so cold I washed eight pairs of wool socks yesterday! A record.  We really didn't do much this weekend except go to a nephew's birthday party on Saturday afternoon at my sister's house and attend church on Sunday. I've been hibernating. I love winter for the cosy hibernating. Holly says 'hello', she is waiting for her beloved (husband) to come...

  Good morning to you! How have you been?  My knitting is on fire these days. I have three main projects that get equal treatment and spark immense joy. Above is the sweater that I am knitting along with my sister. I love the color and the construction so far of the sweater pattern and the yarn is very tweedy. Next up is my hat which is my third musselburgh hat pattern. Nothing is so satisfying as knitting endless stockinette stitch when you are reading a book or talking to someone. Lastly, I have a shawl on the needles, but I think there was a mistake in the lace portion of the pattern so I am correcting it along the way (and it could be that I made a mistake that I am fixing along the way!) I am pretty confident in my pattern alterations but my fingers are crossed if I have to fudge further along in the pattern as I continue to knit along. What are you working on this week?

  Good morning! How are you? I am doing great and the weekend was fun. My sister and my aunt celebrated birthdays this weekend. Actually a lot of my family have birthdays in January, do you have a month where all you do is celebrate a birthday? On Saturday, my sister and my brother in law came over for a lasagna dinner along with board game night. We celebrated her birthday on that day as well. I'm hoping all this game playing is good for the brain, it's definitely good for boosting happiness. My sister and I ordered a sweater kit from Woolly Thistle and started our sweaters on Saturday. What fun!!  My January so far has been a knitting starting frenzy, the cold crisp weather inspires me. Yesterday, my family all met at the william penn hotel in Pittsburgh to have a brunch buffet to celebrate my aunt's birthday. It was nice to be with family and eat good food. I have some exciting news! Our son, his wife and the two kids will be moving here somewhere in the greater Pittsb...

  Good morning! How are you doing? How is January so far? After my company left last weekend, I have put my house back to the way it was and fully recharged my battery with lots of knitting and reading. I am working on another hat (remember it's hat-knitting mojo for me right now). I started a new book to read and it's one from my shelves which will count towards my ultimate goal of reading what I own and then donating the book out of the house. Sometimes I keep books if I find them extraordinarily touching. I've struggled with maintaining my walking outside, there is a limit to how cold I can be. I continue to exercise inside with my weights and doing yoga poses. Even though it's cold, I continue to love winter the most. My creativity soars in brisk weather! I have exciting news to share. As you know, Holly only loves my husband and shows that love only to him. Well, other day she gave me some head butts for the FIRST time ever. I felt so loved by her, then she took a ...

  Good morning! How are you doing?  We've been so lucky to have snow flurries every single day this week and it's beautiful. It's quite chilly out so walking has been brisk - I toy with not walking outside each day, but then I'll walk a bit giving myself the option to turn around and go home if I am too cold. Usually, I keep on walking. I can tolerate the cold more so than the unbearable heat in the summer. I finished my hat ! I received this beautiful yarn bundle from my sister for my birthday in November. I loved choosing the striping sequence and it was fun to knit little bits of mini skeins. Even burying all those thread ends wasn't a chore but a delight.  I wanted a loose hat (I dislike tight hats, I feel colder in them) and I wanted the hat to be slouchy. I just created this hat out of my head with a slightly educated guess to the size. I knit the length until I felt it was long enough on my head with some slouchiness.  Over all my guessing turned out great!

  Hello! It's been some time hasn't it? My family is still here visiting but it's nap time and I'm quickly making this post a priority because when my family leaves on Saturday morning I will be putting away Christmas decorations and then I will need to recover physically from that. I hope to be back at this space sometime next week. I'm having a great time with the grandchildren, lots of playing (and crying, ha ha). We went to the museum the other day to look at the dinosaurs and that was a ton of fun. What wasn't fun is that my son arrived with some kind of stomach bug but luckily no one else got it from him. That is the Christmas miracle that warms my heart.  I still have my arthritis flare, I think it will stay with me until they leave and I can completely rest for three days. It's mostly my hands and wrists. It's not from knitting since I am barely knitting. The above project is a hat that is almost finished! I will start decreasing soon. I want it...

  Hello! How are you? How have you been?  I've been knee deep in knitting and enjoying the quiet after some busy days celebrating Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we went to my sister and brother in law's house for dinner and celebrated with her family. After dinner we attended Christmas Eve Mass. Christmas Day was by ourselves with lots and lots of phone calls to the kids, his mother and my dad.  I casted on a new hat before Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day. The striped hat below was the first hat started. I haven't snapped a photo of the second one. Apparently I am in a hat-knitting frame of mind.  My son and his family arrive tomorrow for an entire week. So you know what that means....I will be posting irregularly until they leave. So if I am not posting, it's because I am having fun with little ones who take all my attention (and my energy!). 

  Good morning! How are you? This weekend was one of the best weekends ever because we got snow and it was unpredicted which made it all the more special. I even took a walk during the squalls but decided to cut the walk short. Brr. Besides wintry weather, I am proud to announce I am ready for Christmas. We are going over to my sister's house for Christmas Eve dinner and do our exchanging with her family. It will be fun. Christmas day is just the two of us at home, plus lots of phone calls to family far away.  My son and his family arrive on Saturday for a whole week visit. I am excited about that. I am not ready for that, but I will be. (lists are my friend) The above photo is the morning moon winking at me. The very first photo is the odyssey shawl  I started before my car trip. I have ripped this back twice because I keep forgetting the pattern and keep knitting thinking I know the pattern.  I finished my husband's musselburgh hat , this will be in his Christmas S...

  Grab a cup of tea, this will take a while. How are you? How's your week been? I have been thoroughly enjoying this Advent season! I cannot believe we are near the end. Time does fly. We left on Sunday to help out with babysitting on Monday and Tuesday and arrived back home on Wednesday this past week. We had excellent driving weather both to and from Indiana. Sadly all my photos cannot be shared with the internet of the kids. I don't feel right doing so. So just imagine me and my husband being on the go from 8 am until 8 pm unless it was nap time. Our grandson is almost three years old and our granddaughter is 16 months old and both are fun. I have wiped my distant memory of taking care of little ones and wonder how I had the energy. I am now battling an arthritis flare (it is a small one so not a big deal) and I know it's from traveling and doing too much. I still knit a lot on the car rides and I started a new project but you'll have to wait for me to create a proje...

  How are you? How are you doing as we lead up to the holidays? I am getting things done bit by bit aided my a very detailed to do list. I finished my granddaughter's hat a week or so ago and forgot to show you! This project was a fun quick easy knit. Below is a photo of my husband's hat that I would love to finish before Christmas. For incentives for me to finish on time, I started placing a marker before I start knitting for the day so I could see my progress. It appears I knit one inch or so a day. As of today I am confident I will meet my goal. Lastly, I restarted a pair of mitts for myself with some lovely wool my daughter gave me for Mother's day. The original pattern I chose was too hard for me to see the stitches to do the cabling and there were mistakes in the pattern that I knew needed to be corrected before knitting. I can do both but I just didn't have the mental bandwidth to do it. The older I get, the harder it is to see dark wool in the evenings even w...

  Good morning! Boy have I missed you guys. I had a fantastic visit with family and spent some quality time with the grandkids. They left yesterday morning and I put my house back together again once more. They will be visiting again shortly after Christmas for an extended period of time. I am so lucky! My knitting was non-existent while they were here. I continue to work on the second Musselburgh hat for my husband who sees me knitting it but doesn't know it's for him, ha ha ha. I've been feeling under the weather but I am convinced it's my auto-immune disease, so I've been taking it easy, hydrating and keeping my fingers crossed. So far this plan is working! What are you working on this week?

  Let's call this year, the year of the hat. I am in hat knitting mode and loving it. I whipped this little hat up for my grandson in a week. I altered the amount of brim and changed 1 x 1 ribbing to 2 x 2 ribbing. I'm hoping that this hat will last since the brim can easily fold up. I have already started one for my granddaughter. What are you working on this week? Happy Thanksgiving for all who are celebrating. I will be back to this space next Wednesday - we have family visiting us once again!!

  I celebrated my birthday this week! What a great time to be alive, I am so grateful. I received many calls from my family. While yesterday was not my birthday, it snowed! I felt like that was a gift from Mother Nature since I love winter so much. We went to see the holiday lights at the conservatory and they were lovely. I had a difficult time being thoroughly immersed in the displays because right before we walked into the foyer we were pummeled by high winds and drenching rains. My husband and I were soaked through and were so cold down to our bones. Glass houses are not heated, lol. All I thought about was getting home and changing my clothes and drinking hot tea. Yesterday was a delicious day at home. I got caught up on the computer with 'stuff' and did my readings for the week for two classes. Below is a photo of a hat for the my grandson. I am not sure I have enough yarn so I am winging it. My years of experience say there is enough yarn but the pattern I chose says the...

  Good morning! I am so excited that we might get some snowflakes tomorrow, but first I have to weather the rain today. My fingers are crossed! I finished my hat and I love it. I made the extra large size. For my second hat, and there will be a second one, I will go up a needles size and down a hat size but add more length. I'll let you know when I cast on.  What are you working on this week?

  Hello! How was your weekend? My weekend was wonderful! On Saturday, my sister and I went out shopping to craft stores and spent some quality time together. In the afternoon, my husband and I went out as well to do a bit of shopping for 'boring' stuff. He needed some new rain boots for when he works outside. But it was quality time together! I was woefully behind on laundry and got all caught up this weekend. That is a satisfying feeling and it's so nice to have shirts I want to wear as opposed to having to wear. It's a mindset. After months of not painting, I pulled out my supplies and dabbled a bit. I also worked on my throw that is evolving on its own. I've added more colors since the photo. Now I'm trying to use up all of my scraps if that is possible. I do like the challenge. Sunday morning we attended Mass, afterwards I rested by knitting and reading. It was a great day! What did you do this weekend?

  Good morning! How are you?  My oh my, did I have a busy long weekend but more about that later on in the week. My knitting halted when my kids and grandkids were visiting. As soon as everyone left on Monday morning, I was digging in my knitting bag returning once again to my newly cast-on  throw that I decided to do with three skeins of yarn from stash. I have since changed my mind and am using scraps as much as possible for the throw with the light pink skein as a base. I'll let you know what I think as I go along. The uncertainty of wool amounts have me questioning this decision but I'm up for the mystery and the challenge I guess. What are you working on this week?

  Good morning to you! How are you? I'm excited about my hat that I've been knitting enjoying the sea of stockinette stitches. When I first started the hat I thought it would be too small, now I wonder if it will be too big. Gah. I will find out soon I guess. I wish the photo about showed how beautiful the colors are in real life, you'll have to trust me on this! Below is my next knitting project, the habitation throw . I will definitely use the pink and gray, I'm still not sure about that purple, I might have a look-see in my stash and do another ponder about that color. I chose this pattern because I can use up some of my stash and I adore Helen Stewart's patterns. What are you working on this week? Also: I will probably not be posting this Friday and the following Monday because of my family visiting. I hope to be back next Wednesday (unless I change my mind).

  Hello! How was your weekend? My weekend was filled with cleaning the house which set off some allergies but I am recovering. I guess when you rarely dust, then dust, you're going to go through some things. Will this make me dust more? I doubt it. Are you wondering why I'm cleaning? We have the kids (both of them) coming this coming weekend and I have tasks to do every single day leading up to Friday in the hopes that I am not doing everything the last minute.  On Saturday and Sunday, we had beautiful weather and I walked the neighborhood enjoying the blue skies and endless sunshine. I read some, I knit some and I tried to make the weekend feel like a weekend. We even ordered pizza! On Sunday after Mass, I wrote out a detailed TO DO list so I do not get overwhelmed.  I spent a ton of time on Ravelry, trying to decide on my next knitting projects and failed. I have some ideas but nothing definite. I find patterns I like but do not have the yarn, I have yarn that I like bu...

  Good morning! How are you? I forgot to take a photo yesterday of the little sweater I made for my granddaughter. You know I love fall and winter the most but there is an advantage to having more daylight is spring and summer for photoing my knitting projects. This sweater zipped on and off my needles! I did a lot of car knitting which led me to finish knitting the bulk of the yoke and body of the sweater. Once I got to the sleeves it was all downhill. I do love top/down construction just for that aspect. I knit this pattern last year for her holiday sweater so I decided to make it once more in a bigger size. I'm pleased with how it turned out. What are you working on this week?